Baking Frenzy

I had a simultaneous hankering for chocolate, fruit bars, and cinnamon buns. And had to do something about it. I first made these raspberry-almond bars. Then, when I was in the froufrou Metropolitan Market, I saw ...

McVitie's Digestive cookies! I can't get enough of these things. I have been on the lookout for cookies like the Bixits J and I had while visiting friends in Norway. McVitie's are darned close. Americans really don't do digestives like they do in Britain or Norway or Canada. I prefer to do my own chocolate layer so I can avoid all the nasty bits that have to be added to stabilize for transport and packaging. Plus, the price for chocolate cookies was $3 more than for plain! Lame.

My favorite time of day for a chocolate digestive is in the morning with my tea. I like to dip it to melt the chocolate a little. Yum. After downing this container, I went back to the store, planning to buy the whole shelf, and they were totally gone! In their place was a digestive with a milk chocolate side or a white chocolate side. Disgusting! Yet another thing to bemoan about this country and its culture! White "chocolate" isn't even chocolate, people! It's disgusting is what it is!

These are the cinnamon bun fix. As you can see, I went the healthy(ish) route. These actually have wheat germ in them! I decided against the egg wash with sugar on top and I regretted it. They do not look like the photo in the cookbook. *sigh* I just can't bring myself to spend an egg on a wash.

The frenzy ended with cookies for the kiddo. Sam and I made the dough and cut out the cookies together. He loves to "scoop," and whenever I pull out the flour he goes for his stool so that he can stand at the counter with me and scoop whatever needs scooping. It's a little nerve-racking and you have to get out many more bowls just in case the kid does something like, oh, shove his hands in the flour and start throwing it back in the container ... or pour the carefully measured flour from such a distance as to get roughly half in the bowl and half on the counter and floor. The mess is fine because Sam "helps" to clean by sweeping all the detritus onto the floor, which then becomes a slippery biohazard. But scooping and measuring have got to be great skills. And then there is that time with Mommy in the kitchen, participation in meal (or sweets) prep, and all that other great stuff.

In the end, we had quite the selection of baked goods in the house. Since I am pregnant, I am totally fine with that because no one can really tell that I am putting on anything other than baby weight. It does look like I am on track to gain more this time around, however. Insert sad face emoticon. AND I was recently asked by the tiny Thai delivery guy if I was having twins. Sad emoticon times two.